Karlsbad and Dortmund: Storms cause floods and lightning strikes

After severe storms in Dortmund and the surrounding area, the fire brigade and police had several missions on Sunday afternoon.

The roof of a house in the Scharnhorst district caught fire from a lightning strike.

Nobody got hurt.

Heavy rain caused floods in many places on the streets and highways, basements and gullies overflowing.

There were also significant impairments on railway lines, as Deutsche Bahn wrote on Twitter. The long-distance trains between Münster and Dortmund were also affected, some of which had to be rerouted and thus accumulated delays. There were partial failures between Dortmund and Lünen after a lightning strike disrupted the operation of a signal box. Disruptions also made journeys in the Fröndenberg and Wickede areas difficult. Replacement traffic should be set up there after failures.

The German Weather Service (DWD) also expects a severe storm in Baden-Württemberg on Sunday evening. A depression pulls from west to east. The meteorologists expect heavy rain of 25 liters, here and there also 40 liters per square meter, hail of two centimeters and gusts of up to 80 kilometers per hour. The thunderstorm moves relatively quickly through Baden-Württemberg, which is why it will not be as violent as at the beginning of the week, when streets, cellars and a vaccination center in Tübingen were flooded by the heavy rain. At the same time, floods are to be expected in particularly affected places on Sunday as well.

In Karlsbad (Karlsruhe district), the main street in the district of Langensteinbach was flooded on Sunday afternoon.

The water was up to 70 centimeters high and numerous cellars were flooded.

The fire brigade spoke of around 70 deployment sites in the village.

A kindergarten was also under water up to the ground floor.

Thunderstorms also possible in Lower Saxony and Bavaria

In Lower Saxony and Bavaria, too, the DWD's meteorologists warned of severe thunderstorms on Sunday.

Initially, dark clouds are likely to rise in the southern and western parts of Lower Saxony, and there could be occasional heavy rain, hail and strong gusts of wind, as the meteorologists predicted for the region on Sunday morning.

Later the thunderstorm activity shifted to the northeast.

In Bavaria there is said to be frequent thunderstorms in the west as well as near the Alps, sporadically also in the east of Bavaria. Storms with heavy rain, gusts of up to 75 kilometers per hour and two-centimeter hailstones are also possible in the Free State. For the start of the week, the meteorologists then predict sun and clouds with only a few showers and thunderstorms.